Grain sorghum or milo crops are commonly harvested for use as animal feed grain or for use as whole plant silage. Where a milo crop is to be utilized for whole plant silage, the entirety of the plants, including the grain heads and the stalks may be cut and processed by a conventional combine harvester. In such harvesting process, the harvester's front end feeder house may be pivoted downwardly to lower a forward cutter bar of a centrally attached combine header to a low level which may cut the milo stalks near ground level.
Such conventional combine harvester may be alternatively utilized for harvesting only the grain heads of such milo crop for use as animal feed. In such alternative harvesting process, the feeder house and the centrally attached header may be raised to cut the milo stalks at an elevation immediately below the grain heads. In such alternative harvesting process, large quantities of uncut milo stalks pass rearwardly beneath the header, and significant portions of those uncut stalks may lie in the rolling paths of the combine's tires. Such uncut stalks are typically useful as silage; and where the combine's tires roll over such stalks, portions of valuable silage crop may be destroyed and wasted.
The instant inventive combine harvester header assembly solves or ameliorates the problems, defects, and deficiencies described above, by providing specialized structures which laterally cantilever a harvester header at a grain head height, and at a laterally removed position outside the paths of the combine's tires.